Zeiter family focuses on top-quality eye care

STOCKTON - Few medical practices survive 50 years, since most practitioners don't even get started until their early 30s. But there are rare exceptions.

Joe Goldeen

STOCKTON - Few medical practices survive 50 years, since most practitioners don't even get started until their early 30s. But there are rare exceptions.

Take a strong family tradition of working hard in school, completing four years of college, four years of medical school and another four years learning to specialize in ophthalmology, and then combine that with an earnest desire to provide the residents of Stockton and surrounding communities with the best vision services and eye surgery possible, and you get the Zeiter Eye Medical Group Inc.

The dedication of the Zeiter family of doctors - patriarch and founder Henry, son John and nephew Joe and, beginning earlier this year, Joe's son Joseph - along with their fellow physicians and staff has paid off with a thriving practice working out of seven offices and surgery centers in five cities.

That dedication to all residents has been evident for at least the past 20 years since the three elder Zeiter doctors started Mission Cataract, their annual effort to provide free cataract surgeries to those who have no insurance and no means to pay for it.

By age 75, 70 percent of all people develop cataracts, according to the American Academy of Ophthalmology. A cataract is when the lens in the eye gets cloudy, reducing light and images from reaching the retina, where vision takes place.

In August, the practice introduced its new $500,000 LenSx Laser, the first and only such technology currently available in Northern California, according to Joe Zeiter.

The LenSx is a bladeless, computer-controlled laser used for cataract surgery that allows the surgeon to plan and perform the five-minute operation to precise specifications not achievable by any other method.

"For years, we have been doing whole surgeries excellently with knives. The laser is even better. It takes the guesswork out of it. The main purpose is to get rid of astigmatism, the main reason many of us wear glasses. It's the only procedure in medicine that makes you younger," Zeiter said.

"Stockton is privileged to have this. It's the difference between walking and taking the Concorde to Europe," he said, describing the $1,200 procedure (per eye) that takes all of about five minutes under light sedation.

Zeiter said that in addition to the skills and technology that his medical group provides, it's the attitude that everyone brings to their job every day that makes it all work.

"We love what we do. We provide a great service - the latest and greatest. You know we take pride in that," he said.

Over the years, the reputation of the Zeiter Eye group has spread, drawing ophthalmologists from six states and countries such as Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela and Lebanon to Stockton for training.

"In the eye world, Stockton is revered," Zeiter said. "We really have an excellent name around the world."